Joseph Benavidez Drops Yasuhiro Urushitani To Secure TKO Victory

Joseph Benavidez booked his place in the UFC’s flyweight tournament final at UFC On FX 2 with a TKO victory over Yasuhiro Urushitani.

Benavidez was certainly the aggressor in round one as he pursued Urushitani with flurries of strikes on multiple occasions during the round.

Urushitani was using good movement however and steered clear of many of those combinations, though his defensive gampelan was leaving him with little opportunity to land with counters of his own.

Benavidez best moment of the round came in the closing stages as he secured a takedown, methodically worked until he achieved full mount and then transitioned to the back where he worked hard for a rear-naked choke, but despite finally sinking it in he couldn’t produce the tap before the bell sounded.

The momentum was now clearly in his favor however and he carried that into the second round with immediate effect, countering a body kick with a big right hook that crashed into Urushitani’s chin, dropping him to the canvas.

Benavidez followed up immediately with strikes to his still dazed opponent and the referee called and end to the fight with just 11 seconds of the round gone.

It’s been a long time coming, but Benavidez has finally had the chance to compete at 125lbs and with a performance like this has proved that it is the perfect weight class for him, and he’ll now go on to face Demetrious Johnson in what should be a cracking final later in the year to establish the division’s first ever champion.

Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.

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